During the presidential campaign there were some journalists - albeit far too few - who sought to shine a spotlight on Donald Trump's potentially precarious business empire, including Trump's rumored dependency on Russian money and/or loans from the Bank of China. Sadly, these stories never got the traction they deserved and Trump's vulnerability to Russian extortion remains an open question. Now, with critics demanding that Trump divest his business interests to avoid conflicts of interest and violation of the U.S. Constitution's emoluments clause, Trump is refusing to do so. A piece in Talking Points Memo suggests that he cannot do so because he is too "underwater" to divest. If such is the case, it underscores that Trump is not the business success he claims. Here are column highlights:

Since Donald Trump's surprise election one month ago,
there's been a bubbling conversation about the mammoth conflicts of interest he
will have if he is running or even owning his far flung business enterprises
while serving as the head of state. I've suggested that the whole notion of
'conflicts of interest' doesn't really capture what we're dealing with here,
which is really a pretty open effort to leverage the presidency to expand his
family business. But a couple things came together for me today which make me think
we've all missed the real issue.

Maybe hecan'tdivest because he's too underwater to
do so or more likely he's too dependent on current and expanding cash flow to
divest or even turn the reins over to someone else.

Late this afternoon we got news that Trump willremain as executive producer of The
Apprentice, now starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. That is, quite
simply, weird. The presidency is time consuming and complicated, even for the
lazier presidents. Does Trump really need to do this?Canhe do it, just in terms of hours in
the day? Of course, it may simply be a title that entitles him to draw a check.
But does he need the checkthatbad?

The idea that Trump is heavily
leveraged and reliant on on-going cash flow to keep his business empire from
coming apart and collapsing into bankruptcy was frequently discussed during the
campaign. But it's gotten pretty little attention since he was elected.

After Trump got into that scuffle with Boeing, reporters
asked about his ownership of Boeing stock. Trump replied that he'd already sold
that stock. So there was no problem. But there's a bit more to it than that.

Now, c'mon. Donald Trump sold off
all his equities more than six months before he could become president because
he was concerned about conflicts of interest? Please. That doesn't pass the
laugh test.

But consider this. During the
primaries Donald Trump loaned his campaign roughly $50 million. Over the course
of the spring, as it became increasingly likely he'd be the nominee, that loan
became increasingly conspicuous.

It was only in June that Trump finally gave in and
forgave the loan; this wasconfirmedin the June FEC
disclosure that came out in late July. Who knows why Trump sold off all his
stock holdings? Maybe he just had a feeling. Maybe he thought the market was
too hot. Maybe he just had a spasm of prospective ethical concern. But let's be
honest. The most obvious explanation is that forgiving that debt from his campaign
required him - through whatever mix of contingencies - to free up more cash,
either for the campaign or personal expenses or perhaps to have a certain
amount of cash on hand because of terms of other debts. It does not seem
plausible at all that the timing is coincidental.

Since we don't have Trump's tax
returns, there's just a huge amount we don't know about his businesses. What we
do know is that Trump appears to wildly exaggerate the scale of his wealth and
exhibit a stinginess that is very hard to square with a man of the kinds of
means he claims. A heavily leveraged business, one that is indebted and
dependent on cash flow to keep everything moving forward, can be kind of like a
shark. It has to keep moving forward or it dies.

This is all necessarily speculative because Trump has
kept the details of his business empire hidden from the public. But behavior,
circumstantial evidence and lots of evidence of tight reliance on cash flow to
service debts of various sorts suggest that Trump may not be able to divest or
separate himself from his business. Why doesn't he? Why does he court all this
controversy? Because he can't.

If all this is true, the peril of
Trump's foreign deals is larger than we may realize. It's not just a matter of
hitting the billionaire big time. It could be a matter of staying afloat at
all.

I continue to encounter "friends" who voted for Donald Trump some of whom continue to defend their vote by claimed ignorance of Trump's anti-LGBT stances during the election campaign and/or Trump's over the top self-prostitution to some of the foulest elements of the radical Christofascists. For such individuals I hold little sympathy and take the position that if you were too lazy to educate yourself about with whom Trump was climbing in bed with, why should I simple forgive you for putting my civil rights and safety at risk? If you don't know the positions of a candidate and/or who they have aligned them self with, I recommend not voting. Others seem to realize the stab in the back they have given to their LGBT friends and neighbors and are trying to make amends through extra friendliness. Sadly, such efforts will not undo the damage that has been done. A final group justify their betrayal by saying they merely voted for "change." Putting a pistol to one's head and pulling the trigger would also usher in "change," but not a positive one. Metro Weekly has a piece that compiles all the reasons that LGBT Americans should be terrified by the oncoming Trump administration. "Friends" who voted for Trump need to read the entire piece. Here are excerpts that look at five (5) of the scariest Trump nominees:

It’s a tale of two Donalds, or perhaps a strange case
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, when it comes to the president-elect’s stance on
LGBT rights.

During the campaign, Trump tried to position himself as a
more reliable defender of LGBT rights than Hillary Clinton. In 2015, he said
that sexual orientation shouldn’t be a reason to be fired. He said that he’d
allow transgender reality star Caitlyn Jenner to use whichever bathroom she
preferred if she were to visit Trump Tower. He vowed to keep LGBT people — along
with other Americans — safe from the threat of ISIS. He even waved a rainbow
Pride flag given to him by a supporter at one of his rallies as a show of
support for the LGBT community.

Yet for all his pandering, Trump has also catered to the
Religious Right, courted evangelical voters, and touted his opposition to
same-sex marriage and reproductive rights. He supported North Carolina Gov. Pat
McCrory when he tried to justify signing the anti-LGBT bill HB 2. And Trump has
referred to allowing LGBT people to serve openly in the military as “political
correctness.”

That’s why so many eyes are fixed on his selections for
various cabinet positions — and why some observers are getting close to hitting
the “panic” button.

The first warning signs came with Trump’s selection of his
close advisers, none of whom require confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Steve
Bannon, the former chairman of the alt-right website Breitbart News, has a
history of expressing anti-gay sentiment and promoting stories with anti-LGBT
viewpoints. Reince Priebus, the outgoing head of the Republican National
Committee, has spent the past few years leading a party that enshrined
anti-LGBT attitudes into its official platform. National Security Adviser Michael
Flynn opposed allowing openly gay service members in the military, and
criticized the Obama administration’s decision to lift the ban on transgender
service members. . . .

Several of Trump’s other picks — who must be confirmed by the
Senate — pose a much greater threat to LGBT rights. Here, from most severe to
least, are Trump’s confirmable (or rejectable) nominees that every LGBT person
should be watching closely.

Jeff Sessions - Position Nominated
For: Attorney General

LGBT Record: As
senator from Alabama, Sessions opposed same-sex marriage, employment
nondiscrimination legislation, partner benefits, lifting the military’s “Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and adding LGBT people to protected classes under the
nation’s hate crime laws. When he was Attorney General of Alabama, Sessions
attempted to use his office to stop the University of Alabama from hosting an
LGBT conference, even taking the university to court to defend a law that
prohibited using public money to fund, in any way, a group that promotes
“actions prohibited by the [state’s] sodomy and sexual misconduct laws.”

As Attorney General, it’s doubtful whether Sessions will
enforce the nation’s hate crime laws in instances where people have been
victimized because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Other
concerns involve the government’s future position on court cases revolving
around LGBT rights.

LGBT Record:Price, a conservative congressman from
the Atlanta suburbs, has accrued a vehemently anti-LGBT voting record during
his six terms in Congress. He boasts a 0% rating for his voting record on the
Human Rights Campaign’s congressional scorecard. He’s voted against an
LGBT-inclusive version of the Violence Against Women Act, against workplace
protections for LGBT employees, and LGBT-inclusive hate crime protections. He
has been a vocal supporter of state bans prohibiting same-sex marriage.

He has suggested that any social legislation, such as
bills to advance LGBT rights, not be passed until a thorough examination has
been completed of the cost of potential health problems that could arise from
“promoting” homosexuality.

As head of Health and Human Services, Price could be
influenced by his extreme views and place LGBT-related research or HIV-related
research on the back burner. Issues of whether insurance companies must cover
certain surgical procedures may also come to a head under a Price-led HHS
department. Lastly, Price is a fierce opponent of the Affordable Care Act and
has called for its complete repeal. This could be problematic for LGBT people
with pre-existing conditions or low-income people who get their insurance — and
subsidies to pay for it — through the Obamacare health exchanges.Ben Carson - Position Nominated For:Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

LGBT Record:As a presidential candidate, Carson
established himself as a doctrinaire social conservative with anti-LGBT views.
Among Carson’s more inflammatory statements are that same-sex behavior by
prisoners proves homosexuality is a choice, that gay marriage was responsible
for the fall of the Roman Empire, and that transgender people cannot change
their assigned sex at birth anymore than they can change their ethnicity. He
has compared same-sex marriage to bestiality, compared gay people to
pedophiles, and said that same-sex marriage is a Marxist plot to destroy
America’s moral foundations.

[O]ne of the likely
targets of a Carson-run HUD may be a recent update to the Equal Access Rule for
shelters. Under the rule, adopted in September, shelters that operate
single-sex facilities or sex-specific projects must provide all individuals,
including transgender and gender nonconforming people, with access to programs,
benefits, services and accommodations based on their gender identity. . . . If Carson is given free
reign, these protections could be repealed.

Mike Pompeo - Position Nominated For:Director of the CIA

LGBT Record:During his three terms in Congress,
U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo has largely been opposed to LGBT rights. . . . . He is a supporter of legislation that could
potentially allow individuals and businesses to discriminate against LGBT
people under the guise of “religious freedom.” He also voted against an
LGBT-inclusive version of the Violence Against Women Act.

Betsy DeVos - Position Nominated For:Secretary of Education

LGBT Record:DeVos
. . . and her husband have donated to Focus on the Family, a
conservative Christian group that opposes LGBT rights. Focus on the Family also
promotes conversion therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or curbing the
behavior of LGBT people and those with same-sex attraction. Other members of
her extended family have donated to other anti-LGBT causes . . .

The chief issue with a
DeVos-run Department of Education would likely be the position that the
department adopts with respect to transgender students and whether they are
protected under Title IX. DeVos’ position on the Obama administration’s current
guidance for school administrators is unknown, but her ties to right-wing
groups have led transgender advocates to call on Trump to rescind her
nomination. Another issue that may arise would be the use of federal education
funds, in the form of vouchers, to support private schools that encourage
conversion therapy for LGBT-identifying youth.

For my white, heterosexual Christian "friends" I would ask that for a moment they put themselves in the shoes of LGBT citizens who now have to worry about their rights being attacked or rescinded. Remeber, some of these nominees support groups that would re-criminalize being gay. Would you be sleeping well at night? I doubt it.

Yes, Donald Trump and his Cabinet nominees to date are very frightening individuals. Never in my life time with the possible exception of Richard Nixon have such delusional and/or extreme individuals been about to take power in America. I remain convinced that the results will be disastrous for many citizens, including the angry white cretins who voted for Trump and the GOP to protect their white privilege without realizing they were cutting their own economic throats. But just as scary, in my view, is Paul Ryan who has cultivated a reputation with a press corps that is just as vapid and easily fooled as Trump's angry white voters. The man often wears his Catholicism on his sleeve, yet other than his opposition to abortion and gay rights, Ryan's goals and policies are diametrically opposed to the Catholic Church's social gospel. He wants to take away health care coverage for millions, he wants to gut Medicare into an inadequate voucher program, he wants to gut Social Security, and he's in bed with Christofascist extremists many of whom are anti-Catholic. Yet the idiots in the media still project an image of Ryan as principled and thoughtful. Compatred to what? One of Hitler's henchmen? A column in the New York Times rightly takes Ryan to task. Here are excerpts:

Paul Ryan has long been cast as Congress’s Boy Scout: earnest, honest
and brimming with the best intentions, whether you agree with his proposals or
not.

Donald Trump is putting an
ugly end to that.

Or, rather, Ryan himself is,
with his example of utter submission to Trump. Other Republicans are looking to
the speaker of the House for guidance on when to confront the president-elect
and when to let his craziness go unchecked. And Ryan is charting the wrong
course.

I’m referring to his recent
“60 Minutes” interview, the apotheosis of all of his tongue biting and
conscience snuffing to date. In particular I mean the part when he was asked
about Trump’s reckless — and wholly unsubstantiated — tweet that millions of
Americans had voted illegally for Hillary Clinton.

“I’m not really focused on these things,” Ryan said, all too blithely. Then: “I have
no knowledge of such things. It doesn’t matter to me.”

Such things? Was he
at a tea in the Cotswolds, discussing the pesky upkeep of the carriage house?

Ryan’s
answer was marginally better than the one given on the ABC News show “This
Week” by Mike Pence, who described Trump’s tweets as “refreshing.” An
adjective’s connotations can change from era to era as a language evolves, but
I still associate “refreshing” with lemonade and dips in the sea, not wild
accusations of voter fraud.

Pence,
of course, is Trump’s designated sycophant. That’s practically written into a
vice president’s job description. Ryan has no similar duty, just a growing
willingness to part ways with principle.

But they can’t afford to stay mum when Trump, merely to stroke his own
ego and assert his potency, tells a lie about election results, calling
Clinton’s advantage in the popular vote a sham. Certainly Ryan can’t, because
he’s a role model and because this lie epitomizes Trump’s demagogic tendencies
and legitimizes fake news, the dark consequences of which are becoming
ever clearer.

The disregard for truth —
and indulgence of fantasy — among people at the pinnacle of power right now is
chilling. Beyond Trump there’s Michael Flynn, his nominee for national security
adviser, who has tweeted pure bunk about Clinton’s ties
to pedophilia and money laundering.

On
the subject of Trump, Ryan has spoken out of so many sides of his mouth that
it’s less an oval than an octagon at this point. Last spring he even affirmed
his endorsement of Trump whilecalling him out for racism. Behold
leadership at its most gelatinous.

Trump is giving a green light to kooks and the finger to the dignity
that Americans rightly expect of a president and that Ryan should demand of
him.

Ryan is
sacrificing too much for too little, and it’s time he rummaged through his
wobbly endoskeleton and made fresh acquaintance with his spine.

Tickets are still available for the fundraiser this evening to support Raplh Northam's gubernatorial campaign. Given the threat - at least in our view - that Donald Trump and a Republican congressional majority pose to LGBT rights and civil liberties in general, it is all the more important that we elect Ralph Northam as Virginia's next governor. We need a firewall against some of the worse extreme policies that may be forth coming, especially given some of Trump's anti-LGBT appointees to date. The husband (Barry D. Menser) and I know Ralph and his wife personally and we believe it is absolutely critical that we do all we can to support his election effort. Hence, we are on the host committee for a fundraiser on December 8, 2016. We encourage you to join us at the event (if you cannot attend, we will be hosting an event in our home at a later date). The details are below:

Please join

Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam

and

Jimmy R. Chisman | Jerri & Frank Dickseski | Duncan & Diana Garnett

Barry Menser & Mike Hamar | Jay & Tara Joseph | Mamie Locke

Monty Mason | Jim McNider | Ross & Martha Mugler

Leonard A. Bennett & Dr. Drina A. Northam

BJ Roberts | Molly & Forrest Ward

At the

Northam For Governor Hampton Kick-Off

Thursday, December 8, 2016 – 6:00pm to 8:00pm

At the home of Molly and Forrest Ward801 Park Place | Hampton, VA 23669

Wednesday, December 07, 2016

All of my children attended the Virginia Beach public schools and for a time I was a pro-education activist striving to see programs that the city now boasts about put into place. To say I was hated by some on City Council and the Virginia Beach School Board is probably not an overstatement. Frighteningly, some of the same players who in my opinion consistently put the best interest of students, especially those who were different, last are still on the School Board - Board Chairman Dan Edwards being a prime example. Now the Board has gotten itself embroiled in seemingly anti-LGBT controversy which is garnering national and international attention via the Washington Post and numerous LGBT blogs and news outlets. Virginia Beach likes to see itself as a first class city, but until small minded individuals like Edwards are removed from positions of governance, the city will remain petty ante at best. What I find most disturbing is that the mealy mouthed excuse given for cancelling a long scheduled gay-straight alliance assembly is that it suggests to me that the School Board may be cowering before demands of Christofascist within the city who are likely emboldened by Donald Trump's naming of anti-gay zealot Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. The disturbing and to me telling part of the excuse is as follows via the Virginian Pilot:

Cox, a school
division spokeswoman, said the event was postponed “ in order to give school
organizers, led by school counselors, an opportunity to involve a variety of
student and community groups interested in being part of the conversation about
tolerance and acceptance for all people.”

“The decision to
postpone was made in an effort to be more inclusive of all groups and students,
not to marginalize any particular student, group or organization,” Cox said.

If you haven't followed the activities of the Christofascists around the country - or even in Gloucester County where a pastor began the lynch mob mentality against Gavin Grimm's restroom usage - you might not catch the language that parrots their favorite excuse for torpedoing anything that might suggest that LGBT students have equal rights and should be free from bullying. The language: "community groups interested in being part of the conversation about tolerance and acceptance for all people.”

Translated, this means that the Christofascists - be they from Regent University, The Wave Church or other "Christian" groups dedicated to making life Hell for LGBT individuals as they force their beliefs on all - want to be involved to (i) kill any pro-LGBT activity, and (ii) argue that "tolerance" includes allowing them to persecute other citizens who do not share their beliefs.

I hope this story continues to get much media coverage and show Virginia Beach for the back water that it remains. As the Virginian Pilot reports, there is growing blow back from citizens, including my friend Janet Wren Moore who addressed the School Board:

Hours
afterthe school division announcedthat an assembly hosted by Cox High
School’s Gay-Straight Alliance has been rescheduled for an evening in January,
pushback from the community continued Tuesday night.

The assembly scheduled for Monday during school hours was to
have included a speech by the president of Hampton Roads Pride and a
question-and-answer panel hosted by students. School administration decided
Sunday to postpone it.

Speaking before the School Board, Janet Moore, a
Hampton Roads Pride board member whose son came out as gay while attending
Tallwood High, said the worry is that some students will not be able to attend
the January event because it begins several hours after school ends.

She
condemned the administration for making its decision to postpone the assembly
less than 24 hours before it was scheduled, saying the students who planned it
for months “didn’t have any time to regroup.”

“It’s unfortunately encouraging misunderstanding and mistrust
– a fertilizer for bullying,” she said of the last-minute decision.

She wasn’t alone in her disappointment at the
administration’s actions.

Nearly 200 people have signed an open letter [authored by friends' now adult daughter] in solidarity
with Cox High’s Gay-Straight Alliance, many of them Virginia Beach parents or
former students of the division.

The
ACLU has requested access to or copies of records on speakers at school
assemblies at the 12 high schools in the city dating back to September 2014.

“Students do not leave their First Amendment rights at the
schoolhouse door, and content-based distinctions by the school division in the
regulation of student speech would raise significant legal concerns,” said
Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, executive director.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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